Contagion
by fire and napalm
Summary: Oneshot. A simple prank gets a little out of hand. How far will this go?Is it worth it? Sirius and James sure think so. MWPP era, fifth year.


Sadly enough, this is my lowest ever rated fic. Enjoy it.

**CONTAGION**

_The curse of pink hair at Hogwarts_

It was a simple prank.

As usual with the Marauders, these few words didn't mean anything similar to what those words coming from anyone else would mean. 'Simple' had multiple meanings for them, and with 'prank' on the end meant how much effort for it, not what the results would be. And even they had never expected what their 'simple prank' would result in.

XXX

James glanced towards Sirius with half closed eyes and gave an announcement that never ceased to result in a prank.

"I'm bored, Snuffles. Let's pull something off." James moaned, rolling onto his back in bed.

"A prank sounds good, anything in mind?" Sirius' reacted much like a dog set on a trail, immediately becoming alert and eager for a better scent. He propped himself up on his elbows from lying down, as Remus, beside him from their muggle card game, fell flat on his face in exasperation.

"You are like a hound, Sirius." Remus muttered. Sirius ignored him, eyes on James as he watched him think.

"I was thinking something simple … but on a larger scale. Like, small that becomes big, maybe something contagious." James muttered to himself and then brightened. "Yeah, something contagious! Nothing dangerous, Remus, just a spell that spreads by touch, like a weird skin colour or something."

Sirius brightened, liking James' idea immensely. "How about pink hair? Glowing neon pink or maybe it could be colour changing or something."

"You just want something that Severus would positively hate to happen to him." Remus accused from where his face was buried on the bed.

James cut in. "I was thinking of starting it with him, yeah. Although, we might avoid blame longer if we started elsewhere. What about starting it with one of us? No one would expect that to come from us." All eyes turned to Peter, who was presently oblivious in his homework. "Doubtless, it'll come back to us. It always does. And we're not working out an antidote until we're caught, okay? Then it'll last longer, no matter when we're caught."

"We could always start with Evans. We rarely ever prank her." Sirius suggested. James immediately gave him a special death glare with extra vehemence. Sirius grinned. He loved bugging James about his not-so-secret crush. Sirius had already known of it for years now, much to James' worry.

"We could also start with your date tomorrow. Besides, we need to work out a spell too if we're going to pull this off. Remus?" James turned to the bookworm, who finally pulled his head out of the blankets with a look of defeat. He might as well enjoy this.

"We could also start with a teacher, or sling shot it at a random person. As for the spell, we've already pulled off pink hair hexes before, and I've seen spreading attributes in a few books. I can look them up in a jiffy. In fact-" Remus reached for his bag, found it too far, and summoned a book out of it rather than reach. It took him five minutes to find the page, and once he had, everyone began to crowd around. "Yeah, here it is. It all depends on how you want it to spread."

"I was imagining by touch, and not just touching the hair, touching the person's skin. How hard's that?" James asked, looking the spell basics over. It was a hard spell, very advanced, and beyond most people his age. James and Sirius looked at each other and grinned. They felt they could pull it off. Remus noticed the look, and chose to not participate in this particular prank. They could get themselves in trouble.

"Well, here's the book you two. Peter could never pull this off, and I don't want to try. We only need to start in two places. And be careful how you use this." Remus told them, pushing the book at James and literally kicking Sirius off his bed. "I am going to get breakfast, alright? And an even better way to avoid immediate blame is to give it a timer before it makes itself known after spreading, and starting with two girls who are known for wanting to dye their hair pink." Remus told them from the door.

"Thanks!" James and Sirius chorused together, heads studying the spell intently. Remus shook his head, and left for breakfast, Peter scampering after him a few moments later to avoid the plotting of James and Sirius. Whenever they became that engrossed in a prank, it meant trouble. Big time trouble.

XXX

It was a dinner time before James and Sirius left the tower. They'd been studying that spell all morning, and they ate ravenously, having ignored breakfast and lunch in their work. Lily was highly curious about why they had been missing all day. James and Sirius were the ones who always were out and about, never hiding in a studious manner. She approached their table hesitantly, and caught the end of Sirius' sentence to James.

"–need a scapegoat to start it."

"You guys need a scapegoat for what, this time around?" Lily stood behind the two of them, giving them her 'prefect glare' which always made Sirius grin at her and James flinch. Sirius had a hoot as he looked up at her over James' own glare and grinned before speaking.

"Just a new plot to take over the world. Nothing much." Lily continued glaring at Sirius' fetching grin. "I will leave your '_boyfriend'_ in one piece, don't worry." James' glare could've melted iron. It wasn't having any affect whatsoever on Sirius though.

Lily was looking at Sirius as though he was something disgusting, a shade worse than her usual glare that she used on James. "I will never go out with James, Sirius. No matter what he may say, I don't care if he's in one piece." Lily turned to go, just as Sirius had his last word.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot he's your boy-_toy_, not friend."

Those were Sirius' last words before he was hexed into oblivion by both Lily and James, both of whom left rather quickly, leaving Sirius with acid green skin on his face, and legs that were twitching spastically while trying to get back onto his seat to the sound of much laughter.

James and Lily were both marching through the entrance hall to the stairs up to the common room, with about twenty feet between them, both fuming at Sirius' gall. James overheard Lily using a number of colourful words in a sentence, ending with Sirius' name and James unconsciously muttered an agreement. Lily heard and looked back at him, shocked. James walked into her before he noticed that she'd stopped.

"Sorry Evans didn't mean to do that." James hurried to apologize as his hand unconsciously went to ruffle his hair again. Lily batted it away and back down to his side before she stepped back to enlarge the space between them.

"You look ridiculous when you do that, you know? And I never thought you'd agree that Sirius' is an arrogant git." Lily stated, her anger making her twitch slightly still.

"He is when he's playing at saying all that. May I ask what you hexed him with? You did a very good job." James added, flattered that Lily was finally talking to him without hexing _him_ as well for simply having the gall to try.

"Jelly legs. He'll probably be able to undo it soon enough. May I ask what you used to turn his face so green?" Lily added, brushing off the compliment casually, and pushing down the pleasure of James not being an arrogant prick and trying so ridiculously to get her attention. She was pleased with this, and admitted he was cute, but she wasn't going to have anything to do with him until his head came out of the clouds, which it hadn't yet. She was only talking to him as long as he was being intelligent –something that didn't happen too often.

"A colour hex. I'm sure you remember when you gave both of us detention for using it to turn Snape's hair pink. We also used it on the common room walls once and on the Slytherin's quidditch robes a few years ago during their quidditch cup game, turning both gold." James added, grinning.

Lily shook her head and scowled. "Do you remember everything in regards to a prank?"

"Usually, that's when I try the hardest." James answered, pleased that they'd been talking civilly for so long. "Sirius'll have that cleaned up soon enough on his own. He'd better, though." James looked thoughtful. "I don't think Poppy knows how to undo that particular hex." James looked back at Lily, alarmed that she looked pissed. "Lily-"

"James, you're so hopeless. Get lost." Lily barked, before turning on her heel and walking quickly up the stairs. As expected, he'd gone back to being a ridiculous git rather quickly. However, she would be spending the next ten minutes in her dorm, gushing to her roommates that he'd managed to be intelligent for almost ten whole minutes, and that they agreed that Sirius deserved being hexed. And that she doubted either one of them would get in trouble, despite it being public. Sirius would never complain about being hexed by his best friend and Lily. Besides, he knew how to clean himself up. Lily finished the stairs with a grin on her face as she prepared to turn the corner before she was overcome with the desire to turn and wave at the dumbstruck James who, as she had expected, was still where she'd left him, his mouth open in shock as he watched her leave. Once she waved, he eagerly exchanged the gesture, waving wildly and calling out "Bye!" as she left, before turning and running happily back into the great hall to finish eating. Lily left with a smile on her own face as she thought that maybe, just maybe, James might eventually be grown up enough for her to tolerate him.

XXX

"SIRIUS!" James flew into the Great Hall, running over to sit down by Sirius to continue his excited ranting directly to his friends as Remus placed his hand over his face in exasperation. "She spoke to me, like, civilly and for a decent while too! This is just great, I can't believe it! She spoke to me and didn't positively kill me for it, and then she waved goodbye even though she called me hopeless, she waved goodbye!" James looked excitedly at each of his friends, hardly able to hold still on his seat as he was almost bouncing up and down. "That's a good thing, right? Right?"

James was now looking hopeful for a response, but Remus finally lost the battle and started laughing, closely followed by Peter as he started snickering while Sirius was trying to decide whether to look exasperated or amused at James' hopeless infatuation. Sirius finally chose to roll his eyes and get up to walk away as James finally to return to his meal. Five seconds later James' potatoes and gravy, which had been getting cold on his plate as he'd followed Lily out, exploded in his face the moment he touched them with his fork, and Sirius snorted from near the door, chased out by a shout from his best friend.

XXX

It didn't take long for James and Sirius to end up on good terms again, and by he nightfall they were back in their rooms together, fiddling with the beginnings of their prank. In a turn of events, Sirius had decided to, in his words, 'poison' his date with a gift of 'hair gel' at the end of the date with the spell in it. She'd been a brat after supper, cornering him and harassing him and he had gotten tired of it, so he'd chosen her as his victim. So now James and Sirius were working on hair products to give away to start their prank. James had stolen a number of shampoo bottles from the girl's bathroom and was spelling those. Tomorrow was Monday, and most girls showered before school.

"James, isn't that a little low?" Remus found himself asking. He didn't know why he even bothered. Of course it was low. It's not like James cared though.

"Yeah, but for a prank, I'd do anything. It's nothing personal. These will be towards the front, so the early risers will get it first. I've planned for a fifteen minute delay before it kicks in, for the epidemic's sake, and thus, few will be able to tell who pulled it off." James looked highly pleased with himself. Sirius looked bored, he was done his 'gift' and had already spelled five of the eleven bottles James had gotten a hold of, and then his generosity had worn off. He spelled another from boredom while listening, and then added his two cents.

"That's great, Evans will be among the first to go pink! I'll betcha you'll be getting it from her, James." Sirius added. James almost looked horrified at the thought, but he took only a moment before, whiter than usual he returned to the spelling. He muttered "Casualty of war" as he continued working. Remus snorted.

"You also realize that you two, and me and Peter, will more than likely become victim to our own prank?" He added gravely. He had to admit, a school full of people with pink hair was amusing. He just wasn't sure that James and Sirius were aware of how far this would go.

XXX

Waking up for school was not something the Marauders normally did readily, unless they were waiting on the outcome of a prank. Thus, the morning after the successful distribution of the prank material, all four woke up early, and were down to the great hall before most everyone else –which was naturally suspicious of them, but with there being no proof, no one could do anything. Sirius and James could hardly stop sniggering, and Peter was looking lost between amusement and anxiety. James then noticed an unfortunate requirement to leave the great hall for a time. Telling Sirius he'd be back quick, he rolled his eyes at the timing and hurried off to find the bathroom.

Once leaving, he came across the first pack of girls, three of which had apparently taken a shower and one was complaining about the shampoo being off. James fought not to laugh as they rest of her group all felt her hair and agreed that it was a little odd. By the time they'd reached the great hall, the group of nine had all touched the one with the shampoo problem, and James was twenty feet from his seat when her hair began to turn into brilliant neon pink. He didn't have to fake shock –he hadn't expected it to turn THAT pink and he was amazed himself. The shrieks of surprise from the other girls resounded through the hall and James stopped where he was much like the others before running off the talk to Remus and Sirius, fighting back a grin.

"Annette, your hair just turned PINK!" One of the friends shouted. However, the next line promised much more confusion over who'd pulled this stunt.

"You never told me you'd found that spell already! I was hoping you'd share it!"

Sirius stared in shock as a whole other group from other tables –Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff girls, walked over asking how she'd done it, much to the victim's confusion.

And then the next two girls' hair changed within minutes of each other, increasing the confusion.

James and the others were shocked at how this was turning out. It was moving along so well, he and Sirius discretely shook hands under the table, and Sirius had his turn to beam when his girlfriend showed up with her hair slicked back.

"I can't believe she bought that load of bull I fed her!" Sirius murmured. He'd told James and them about the cock and bull story he'd fed his date about loving the date, and being disappointed her hair had gotten slightly mussed. He'd then given her hair gel with the 'contagion' –as he and James had named it- spelled into it, telling her he'd given extra hold, and that he'd be flattered to see how she'd use it the next day. Now she'd shown up with no idea what was going to happen to her hair, and no way to stop it. James and Sirius were almost ready to laugh as another group of girls' –the one's James had seen worrying over the girl's shampoo quality- all had their hair change as well and this was followed by another group showing up with pink hair and complaints about shampoo. It seemed the start was a success.

Now they would see how far this would go.

XXX

Somehow, none of them came up as suspects before the first class, which was Potions that day. James was slightly disappointed as Snape walked in with his hair intact. However, as for the rest of the class a good quarter already had pink hair, and by the end of class it had increased to almost half, with people changing hair colour anywhere from the very beginning to halfway through, and a few changed towards the end, having reached over a 'contaminated' person. James and Sirius were both disappointed that Snape hadn't changed hair colour by the end. They'd discussed why there hadn't been too much of a fuss, and by the end of class they had determined that it was because it was nothing more than hair colour that was affected, and that wasn't worrisome enough to warrant an end to classes.

At the end, the teacher of the class, an older man, name of Professor Wimble, also had pink hair. He'd gotten it after giving pointers to one of the girls who had turned hair colour five minutes after he'd left. He wasn't happy, and everyone had burst out laughing. At the bell everyone got up, and James saw, to his joy, a boyfriend of a girl who'd been among the first group he'd seen to change hair colour, who'd he'd watched kiss her before the end of class, walked past Snape, brushing against him in such a way that James knew he'd have pink hair in fifteen minutes. James was ecstatic as they walked out, sharing this with Sirius who gave a barely quieted whoop- and fell against A girl walking by with her hair under a woollen cap. Sirius turned around to see who it was and James felt a dropping sensation in his stomach.

Lily Evans had her hair under a cap that did not hid the few strands of brilliant pink hair sticking out from under it. And the look she then turned on James Potter made his stomach plummet in his chest.

"You!" she murmured. "Potter, I know that this –this MESS is all you and your cronies fault. I hope you're happy! I've had pink hair all morning and nothing I know is getting rid of it! You must've pulled this on every bottle of shampoo in the bathrooms with timers on when it shows up because absolutely everyone now has pink hair. I hope one of you guys accidentally pranked yourselves and you get it, because you sure as hell deserve it!" With that, Lily slapped James hard and stormed off down the corridor as Remus sighed.

"Well, at least she'll get her wish. With you two 'sick' we're all getting it in the next fifteen minutes." Remus sighed, and, guaranteeing he got pink hair when he was going to know about it, he patted both James and Sirius on the shoulders. "Besides, James, I warned you she'd be pranked in the beginning."

"She didn't have to run into me though. I like having black hair, thank you very much. And now, until someone finds out who pulled this, we're stuck with it." Sirius muttered. The halls were now visibly beginning to move onto the next classes so they all wandered to the next class of Transfiguration with McGonagall. Peter ran into a small boy who was hurrying out of their next class who, within moments of running past, had his hair go pink. James, still thunder struck by Lily's anger dully noted that all the marauders were in the clear for a while, as they were almost never victimized by their own pranks and they all knew they'd be pink by the end of class.

McGonagall started the class as usual, and then mentioned that whoever had started this, that if they were in her house she'd have those guilty cleaning chamber pots for a week or more. Her glare landed on Sirius and James who looked dully back at her for a few moments before going back to finding the page they needed. McGonagall sighed and started the lesson, still glaring at James and Sirius while starting the lesson vanishing spells. They were barely given their frogs when Sirius noticed a sudden quiet directly around him and he grabbed part of his hair out of its characteristic braid. It was -as he'd known it would be but hoped it wasn't- a neon pink, much like everyone else's who'd had that unfortunate luck of getting caught by it. James hid his face moments before his hair also flushed brilliant pink, followed shortly by Remus. The class was dead silent as three of the Marauders went pink, and Sirius gave an audible growl as he shook his head and vanished his frog on the first time, partly out of anger. James followed suit without even looking at it and ignored the rather calm Remus who poked him to ask for help. The class had hardly gotten their attention back on the assignment when Peter also turned a slightly less fluorescent shade of pink than the others and their darker hair. This caused a bit of a commotion among the class, and as McGonagall wasn't exactly paying that much attention to everyone's attentiveness it went undisturbed for a while while she racked her brain for a time when she'd known of the Marauders falling for one of their own pranks. As nearly everyone in the classroom was now pink haired, it wasn't that surprising, but she knew how vain Sirius and James were of their hair. It was a little shocking that they would allow themselves to fall for that. McGonagall finally called for order in the class and once that was arranged she went over to Sirius and James and caught their attention by placing her hand on each of their shoulders. They looked up at her, Sirius looking a little stricken.

"Do either of you know anything about this hair mess?" She asked, not unkindly.

James murmured something about Evans being murderous to their faces while Sirius shook his head mildly. McGonagall gave a little frown.

"I didn't think so; you're both too vain to fall for something like this if you started it. Alright, if either of you happen to figure out an antidote as I know you're both highly intelligent, please let us know. A few people are panicking about their hair and dates to come." McGonagall gave each of them a bright smile and stood up. She looked back down at their perfectly vanished frogs and smiled. "You did very good work on those frogs; quite a perfect job." She then returned to her desk, stopping along the way to help Frank Longbottom with his frog as well.

Sirius leaned back in his seat sighing. "Fifteen minutes, Prongs and we're very dead men."

"She won't know Snuffles; it's not that obvious yet. Once everyone has it, though… Didn't the book say it'd wear off in time? The spreading effect?"

"I have no idea. We're so dead."

Fifteen minutes later, McGonagall was helping out Longbottom again when her hair went a shocking pink. This made almost everyone in the room jump as it changed, and then, after moments of frantic looking around, Frank's hair went pink as well. This caused another commotion as McGonagall took about five minutes to calm down from the surprising change. She finally got the class back under control and then went about trying to fix her hair. Sirius and James continued on the sinking feelings in their stomachs, and almost wishing they'd spent more time researching the sure for this.\

XXX

Once Transfiguration was over, it was blessedly lunchtime and the pink Marauders all went immediately there. Sirius, finally getting over his feeling of impending doom made certain to brush against anyone he saw with normal hair, wanting everyone pink like he was.

"Misery loves company." He stated as a reason why.

It was, however upon entering the Great Hall, the image of a furious and nearly murderous Snape that made the Marauders smile again. Snape saw them and almost jumped them in anger.

"Those bloody kids starting this to get at me, I know they did! There's no other explanation, they turned my hair pink years ago, it's unsurprising they'd pull it now!" Snape growled past four restraining teachers.

The Herbology teacher spoke up then, in the Marauder's defence. "I won't deny that they had pulled that stunt then, however, look at them Snape. Have they ever fallen for their own pranks? They each have pink hair. It was most likely a girl's hair colouring spell gone haywire, goodness knows that's where it started." The Herbology teacher was a kindly, older woman who was quite fond of the four Marauders –partly because she rarely felt the brunt of their puns. Her hair, along with every other teacher's excluding Dumbledore's, was pink and she'd actually done her hair up. She never did her hair up.

Sirius was the one with the brass to comment on this. "Ma'am Sickleforr? Why is your hair done up? Is this a special occasion?"

She beamed at him for asking, stepping away from Snape. She was quite a simple woman at times, enjoying an attentive student who asked questions immensely, in or out of class. Sirius often played this up, getting out of homework and trouble easily. He did have respect for her though, and was careful not to push it. "Sirius dear, I haven't had such a lovely shade of hair in years, I'd always colour my hair in school, and this shade of pink was my favourite. I never messed up this badly to spread it to the whole school, but I did accidentally make it leak once. Got eight of my close friends and my boyfriend before it got stopped, and we all had to stay that way for the rest of the day." She laughed lightly. "Needless to say, I lost that boyfriend fast. Didn't trust me anymore, and specially not around hair dye. Now, now, off to lunch, or you'll be late to my class, lads."

Professor Sickleforr ushered them off to the Gryffindor table and onto their seats. Lily came into the room and James fought to see her as she sat sulkily on the very end, her hat still in place. James looked crestfallen, that was, until a Slytherin ran up behind her and grabbed the hat off her head, and her brilliant pink hair fell down her back in the waves that were normally red. Angrily, before even Evans could pull something out of her pocket, James flashed his wand across the room, and changed the Slytherin's skin the same pink as everyone else's hair. He had yet to be caught by the curse, but he would be now, as he's touched Evan's hair.

However, the quick defence of Evan's on James' part had cost him. The colour he'd produced was the same as the hair. The exact same shade. And only the original creator would've had that shade on hand so easily. He'd marked himself as a perpetrator, and the detention marked the end of the prank.

Not one to be left out, Sirius stood up and stated, loudly so everyone heard. "Oi, I wanted to get him. Besides that, you aren't getting all the credit." James gave Sirius a small smile, and turned to face the enraged teachers bearing down on them. James and Sirius however, weren't going without a say in this.

They both stuck out their hands, as though they were about to be handcuffed and stated melodramatically, and completely in synch.

"Oh, woe be it that our perfect wrists be marred with cruel metal bands of restraint on our so beloved freedom." This was marked with the fainting hand gestures, and such actions of people about to swoon. Then, seeing That Dumbledore was still uncoloured and not ones to give up half done, James and Sirius ran past the other teachers to the podium with the teacher's table on it. They then attempted to tackle-hug the headmaster, and he surprised them by allowing it.

"Not ones to give up without seeing your headmaster with pink hair are you two?" Dumbledore stated, with a note of longsuffering and patience. James and Sirius couldn't help but nod. Once in the middle of a prank, they had so much fun that the thoughts of detention be damned. This was worth it. Dumbledore then surprised them by lifting what had apparently been an illusion off his hair and beard, to reveal them to already be a silvery pink. "Dear Lily got me earlier this morning, coming in dead set on killing you James for turning her hair pink. Upon inspection, I realised the nature of the spell, and chose to see who had done this for myself, and decided to see how far this could go. Now, you two are off to cleaning chamber pots I presume?" This was directed at McGonagall, who'd come up behind them, bemused fury across her face.

"Indeed. Now, if you two will come with me?" McGonagall started off towards the door, expecting them to follow immediately, as they were familiar with detentions.

However, James and Sirius dug through their pockets in front of Dumbledore's seat and brought out two glass balls each, and fairly large ones at that. Then, just as McGonagall turned to see why they weren't following, the each shouted:

"In for a penny, in for a dime!"

And lobbed the balls into the spaces between tables, between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, and then directly in front of themselves and each broke releasing a cloud of electric blue smoke. Once this cleared, every single person in the room had the same colour of blue hair. This was defiantly another detention. The blue colour was only removable by a spell the boys had made up themselves. The more you tired, the more colours it went, and none of which were normal.

James and Sirius later saw Snape wandering around with his hair a flashing magenta and muttering to himself different curses split by him trying another spell on his hair, causing it to turn a pink white. Of course, they couldn't laugh at him. They were still cleaning for their detention.

After refusing to spill the spell (having already fixed their own hair, Remus', Peter's and Lily's as a favour) they were given another two month's of detention every day save for Quidditch days. This meant that they were likely to be free around Christmas after this being the first month in school. Sirius and James were willing to do this. After all, it was worth it for the three weeks of still finding people with colourful hair even after the contagion wore out of the floors of the Great Hall. The blue had been air traveling.

XXX


End file.
